by Devon Monk
Her eyes were red, glossy with unshed tears, even though her voice was flat and steady. “I don’t . . . I don’t know how much more . . .” She shook her head.
“He’ll be fine,” Cedar said gently. He walked the distance between them and, after a moment’s hesitation, rested his hand on her arm. “We’re all going to be fine.”
Mae stared at his shoulder, stiff, unbreathing. Then she stepped that much closer to him and placed her head on his chest, and her right hand on his arm, just as his was on hers.
Cedar inhaled the sweet scent of her, and swallowed hard. He held very still, not daring to comfort her, to pull her in against his body, to wrap his arms around her tightly and hold her as he desired, safe against the pain. There was no safety against this kind of pain, and the only comfort was time.
Mae cried, very, very quietly, while Cedar stared at the wall, holding his emotions under lock and key. Time was the only, and the kindest, thing he could give to her.
Finally, she took a deeper breath, held it, and let it out. Her hand clenched his shirtsleeve for the briefest moment, as she steeled herself to face the world again.
When she pulled back, her eyes were dry.
“Mr. Hunt,” she began awkwardly, glancing from his tearstained shoulder to his mouth to the wall behind him, seeming uncertain of how to explain herself, “I didn’t—”
“Do you need a hand waking Wil?” Cedar smoothly interrupted. He stepped around her, careful not to let his fingers linger against her arm, careful not to touch her again, for fear of what he might do. He walked over to the cot, placing his hand on his brother’s side.
Mae didn’t answer for a moment, then, “Yes,” she said on a grateful exhalation. “He responds to you much better than to me.”
Cedar called Wil’s name and smiled when he opened his eyes. It was a marvel to him that his brother was alive, even though he was still under the curse’s hold.
Mae brought out a slab of venison and put it on the floor. With the meat as encouragement, Wil stepped down off the cot and ate and drank. Then he walked a slow circle around Cedar, and a wider circle around the room, his limp easing some the more he moved. Finally, he glanced up at Cedar, copper brown eyes filled with a man’s intelligence and curiosity.
“We’ll need to be going,” Cedar said. “Traveling away from here, traveling east. We’ll go at your pace. Are you ready?”
In answer, Wil walked to the door and waited there.
Cedar took one last look at the cabin, his gaze resting on the heavy chain and leather collar pounded into the hearth. Mae and Rose hadn’t asked him about it, though he supposed they knew very well what he’d used it for. His fingers strayed to the Madders’ chain around his neck. He’d be more than glad to leave the heavy chain and collar behind.
Mae finished cleaning up and poured the last of the herb water over the coals in the fire. She dried her hands on her skirt, and came to stand next to Cedar.
“Well, then,” she said. “Shall we, Mr. Hunt?”
Cedar took one last look at the cabin, then opened the door. Wil slipped out quickly. “Yes, Mrs. Lindson,” Cedar said, “I believe we shall.” He held his hand out, ushering her through the door, and then followed her into sunlight.
They had gotten three miles or so out of town when Cedar heard a clattering of wheels following them.
He looked back. A tinker’s wagon, painted bright as a bordello bedspread, top-heavy with a crazy assortment of metals and gears and whim-wham, followed them. Atop the rattling monstrosity sat the Madders. Alun Madder smoked his pipe and held the reins of the two draft horses who pulled the contraption at a quick clip.
They pulled up behind Cedar, Mae, Rose, and Wil.
“Evening, fine folk,” Alun called out. “Where you headed?”
“Down the road,” Cedar said, leaning forward in the saddle a bit to ease the pain.
Alun chuckled. “We’ve been thinking we’d travel with you a piece.”
“Oh? And why’s that?”
“You still owe us a favor, Mr. Cedar Hunt,” Alun Madder said with a wide smile. “And we’ve come to ask for it.”
Cedar tipped his hat back and loosened the strap on the gun he kept lashed to his saddle. “That so? Seems to me your favors do nothing but bring trouble.”
“We’re looking for you to hunt for us.”
“My time’s previously committed, Mr. Madder. I have people to tend to and promises to keep.”
Alun puffed on his pipe, considering. “We’re patient men, Mr. Hunt, but you promised you’d find our Holder, and bring it to us.”
Wil, who had stayed at Cedar’s heel, pricked his ears up and whined.
“The Holder?” Cedar asked, searching his memories for what they had told him. “Don’t know how I’d likely find it if I don’t know what it is.”
“The Holder is a device of seven pieces, made of the seven ancient metals. Each piece is a talisman, an artifact, a device to be used for good: healing the sick, blessing crops, bringing peace unto a land. When this New World was discovered, the Holder was brought here as a gift by like-minded men who wanted peace and prosperity for settlers and natives alike.
“But Shard LeFel caught rumor of it. He sent his Strange to sniff it out.” Alun paused, his gaze lost to a distant time. When he spoke again, his voice was lower. “They killed for it, tortured for it, committed such horrors. Relentless, until they had stolen each and every piece. Then they worked their dark devising. The Holder is now a weapon of pain, plague, war. Each piece broken and remade Strangewise, so that nothing but sickness, ruin, and chaos fall to any who find it. And if someone is clever enough to put those seven pieces back together again, then they’ll be clever enough to understand the Holder can also be a weapon of a magnitude that has never been seen in these lands.
“We’re of a strong mind to put an end to such things, Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. “And we’re of a stronger mind you’re the man who can help us do it.”
Cedar glanced at Mae Lindson and Rose Small. Neither of them said anything, though Rose’s eyes were wide. The decision would be his own.
“And”—Alun Madder’s tone was light as he pointed the stem of his pipe at Cedar—“while we travel together, it’d only be neighborly of us to offer up the back of the wagon for anyone who grows weary. The wolf, perhaps?”
Cedar looked down at Wil. The Pawnee god had deemed to make Wil’s curse different from Cedar’s, though Cedar did not know why. For the obvious, Wil remained a wolf even after the full moon, and even in daylight. But perhaps less obvious, he did not seem overwhelmed with the killing rage of the beast. He was possessed of the sharp intelligence of both wolf and man at all times.
Wil looked up at Cedar and in his eyes was the agreement, the determination, to help find the Holder. Cedar nodded.
Wil trotted to the back of the Madders’ wagon. Cadoc Madder quickly lowered a step from the back and Wil limped up it, and inside the wagon.
Alun laughed. “Looks like it’s been agreed for you, Mr. Hunt.”
Cedar sat back straight in the saddle and turned his horse to the east. “Just so long as our paths remain the same, I’ll hunt your Holder for you.”
“That’s fine, fine,” Alun shouted as he flicked the reins. “I have a feeling our paths will remain the same for a long time, Mr. Hunt. A very long time.” He and his brothers laughed, and started singing a bawdy parlor song.
Cedar glanced over at Mae Lindson. She seemed caught in her own song, as if the wind carried words to her, her gaze set firmly east. He imagined it would take her a long time to recover from losing her husband, her home, and all that was dear to her.
He curled his fingers around the reins, to keep from reaching out to her, to keep from touching her. A fine woman like her didn’t need a man encroaching on her grief. Not just yet.
“What thoughts are you keeping, Mr. Hunt?” Rose Small asked.
“It’s a strange path life leads a person down. Never know how it will all turn round.
For bad or good.”
Rose thought on that a moment. “I suppose you’re right. I’m looking forward to where the path will take me. Aren’t you looking forward to your path, Mr. Hunt?”
Cedar made a point to stare at the horizon ahead, instead of where his gaze wanted to linger: on the beautiful Mae Lindson.
“Not so long ago, I didn’t think I was,” he said.
“And now?”
“Now I think I’ve changed my mind. Might be a thing or two I can look forward to.”
“Finding the Holder?” she asked.
“I suppose.”
Rose looked over at Mae, then turned an innocent look to Cedar, though there was a wicked sparkle in her eye. “Is there something else you’re looking forward to?”
“I suppose.”
“Don’t reckon you’d tell me what?” she pressed.
“Nope. Don’t reckon I would.” He nudged his horse into a trot, then a slow lope, and began down the road to the east, and all the promise this fine land could hold.
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EPILOGUE
Mr. Shunt sat cross-legged in the shadows by the shattered and burned train car, the last bits of him hooked, stretched, and sewn into place. It had been a slow and grueling process to piece himself back together, and he had used spare parts from the other Strangeworks to fill the holes Jeb Lindson and that cursed man Cedar Hunt had left in him.
His gray, gore-covered coat wrapped him from chin to boot, his face hidden beneath layers of silk and cotton and his stovepipe hat.
He was looking for something. Waiting for one thing more to finish his construction.
There. A dull glint, movement in the bloody soil.
He bent and plucked up a delicate silver dragonfly. He held it in his open palm, and the crystal wings shivered sparks of color in the late-afternoon light.
Such a precious thing. So rare. And now it had no cage to hold it.
Mr. Shunt pressed it into his chest, piecing it together, stitching it a new cage, just as he had pieced himself together anew. Then he took the iron key from his pocket and wound the dragonfly until its wings hummed.
Too great of a treasure to waste on that dead man. Now the dragonfly was where it belonged. Now Mr. Shunt would see that his own desires, his own hungers, were fulfilled.
And that which he wanted most was traveling east.
So east was where he’d go.
He strode down the rail, heading east on the dead iron rails, the sun a burning ember behind him, and all the land spread before him, like a feast of dreams.
Devon Monk writes the Allie Beckstrom urban fantasy series, the Age of Steam steampunk series, and the occasional short story. She has one husband, two sons, and a dog named Mojo. Surrounded by numerous and colorful family members, she lives, writes, and knits in Oregon. For excerpts, information, and news, please visit her Web site at www.devonmonk.com.
BOOKS BY DEVON MONK
THE AGE OF STEAM
Dead Iron
THE ALLIE BECKSTROM SERIES
Magic to the Bone
Magic in the Blood
Magic in the Shadows
Magic on the Storm
Magic at the Gate
Magic on the Hunt
